While media outlets focused on the collapse of Speaker Paul Ryan’s healthcare bill, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) quietly vetoed legislation that would have granted women immediate approval to carry guns for self-defense against domestic abusers.
The bill, HB 1852, would make exceptions in the issuance of concealed carry permits, “[providing] that for a period of 45 days after the issuance of a protective order the individual seeking the protective order may lawfully carry a concealed weapon.”
McAuliffe vetoed the legislation on March 24, claiming HB 1852 weakens the “Commonwealth’s gun safety laws” and “perpetuates the dangerous fiction that the victims of domestic violence will be safer by arming themselves.”
Breitbart News reported the story of Carol Bowne, a New Jersey woman who had gotten a protective order against her ex-boyfriend and applied for state’s permission to have a gun for self-defense. The months-long process of getting permission to have a gun was still playing out when a defenseless Bowne was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend on June 3, 2015.
Fast forward to the state of Kentucky in May 2016, where a man violated a protective order, went to his ex-girlfriend’s house, and was later discovered lying in the grass with multiple gunshot wounds. His former girlfriend was armed and handled his breach of the protective order accordingly.
McAuliffe’s veto makes tragic stories like Bowne’s more likely and self-defense stories like the one in Kentucky less probable.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.